


The Kind You Save

by Ultrageekatlarge



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, It's the Save Bucky Barnes World Tour, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, gen or pre-slash readers' choice, overprotective Avengers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2014-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-05 16:18:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1824634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ultrageekatlarge/pseuds/Ultrageekatlarge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finding Bucky is hard enough.  Keeping him turns out to be another matter entirely.  Or, Hydra wants their asset back, and the Avengers have a few things to say about that, including but not limited to “No,” and “<i>Hell</i> no.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For Jellicle-ball over on tumblr. This got long and out of control like most things I try to write for fandom these days. The original prompt is at the bottom, not that it is actually applicable yet. . I don’t know when the next bit will be up, but stay tuned. There will be 4 full chapters and an epilogue. This first part is probably going to be the longest section. It should probably be its own standalone fic. But here we are and there it is, so I’m just gonna roll with it. I apologize in advance for any and all typos that may exist.
> 
> Come chat with me on tumblr (bonesbuckleup) for updates as they happen.

A woman in Omsk, Russia, killed with a clean shot through the head.

A seemingly harmless church in the Austrian Alps, burned to the ground, a laboratory out of a nightmare just as torched and ransacked as the building above found below it.

An old man in a nursing home in London, his throat slit so deeply that it went straight back into the bone.

All places and victims could be traced back to Hydra and, more specifically, the Winter Soldier program.

For months, Sam and Steve had been following a trail made of blood, gore, and ruins back and forth across Europe.  If Bucky had a pattern, it was one they couldn’t decipher.  It seemed like he was on a randomized blaze of vengeance that had little rhyme or reason to it.  Sometimes, they would get a text from an unknown number – from Natasha – and they would arrive to find another base destroyed, another Hydra operative executed, another place where Bucky no longer was.

But the worst were times like these, Steve thought.  The times where they had nowhere to go, no leads, nothing to follow.  Even back during his war, the waiting was always the most unbearable.   It meant filling time investigating dead ends and abandoned Hydra hideouts, searching for something – for anything – that could maybe lead them just a little bit closer to Bucky.

“I don’t think anyone’s been here for thirty years,” said Sam, coughing at the stale air after Steve forced the door open.

“Watch out for any traps, then,” said Steve.

“Don’t worry,” said Sam.  “I know the drill.”

They were outside of Lucerne, sticking their noses around a base that had been long left to dust and time.  They walked down the hall together, Steve with his shield over his jacket sleeve and Sam with his gun drawn.  Each of them had a flashlight.  At the end, the corridor split into two directions.  “I’ll go left,” said Steve.

“Uh-huh,” said Sam.  “Watch yourself.”

“Right back at you,” said Steve, and they split up.  Steve stepped lightly, the way the sound of his footsteps echoed and bounced off of the walls slamming into his already frayed nerves.

It had been nearly three months.

Three months, and they’d only seen the carefully planned out mayhem that fell in Bucky’s shadow, but not even a glimpse of the man himself.

At the end of the hall, there was another door.  Cautiously and slow, he pushed it open, hinges shrieking from disuse.  The room was mostly empty – to Steve’s right, there were three file cabinets, each with three drawers.  He trailed the flashlight’s beam through the dark, the dust swirling around as he moved it.  Then, he froze as the light landed on the chair.

It was the third one he had come across.  It never got easier, finding them.  If anything, it was another hit, another blow, another reminder that Bucky had been here.  Bucky had suffered here.  Bucky had been tortured and frightened here, and Steve had not been able to stop it.

Steve stared at the chair for a long time before moving over to the rows of file cabinets.  The first three drawers he opened were empty, and so he moved to the next – this one.  This one was stuffed full of yellowed and crinkling folders.  He pulled one out at random and, tucking the flashlight beneath his chin, started to read.

“Find anything?” Steve asked.

“Empty cryo tank,” said Sam.  Steve didn’t ask if it had claw marks on the inside, fossil scars of a metal hand trying to tear its way out, like the last one did.  Sam glanced down at the files in Steve’s hand.  “What are those?”

“Mission reports,” said Steve.  He didn’t look up from the pages – they were written in French, and so he could puzzle out about half of it.    He bit the inside of his cheek and flipped to the next one.  “From Winter Soldier missions.”

Sam crossed his arms.  “Uh-huh,” he said.  “And when are they from, exactly?”

Steve flipped to the front.  “1961,” he said, and leafed back to where he had been.

“Steve,” he said.  “We’ve been over this.  These aren’t going to help.  They’re fifty years old.  Anything you find in there is just going to tear you apart.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said.  “There could be something.”

“Reading it, going over it like this,” said Sam.  “It won’t change anything.  It’s not helping anything.”

“I have to know,” said Steve.  He closed the file shut, and it spit a puff of dust out into the air to mingle with the rest.  He grabbed a stack out and shoved them at Sam.  “Here, help me carry these.”

“No,” said Sam.  “We made the rule for a reason, Steve.  None of these leave the bunkers.  You’ll never put them down, otherwise.”

“Then get comfortable,” said Steve.  He dropped the stack back into the drawer before picking up the next file.  “Because we’re going to be here for a while.”

Sam sighed.  “You get twenty minutes,” he said.  “Twenty minutes, and then I will drag you out if I have to.”

\--

They were in Spain, outside of Valladolid, four months into the chase, when Clint showed up.

“I ran into Nat the other day. She mentioned you were looking for the Winter Soldier,” he said, after getting their attention.  “Gotta hand it to you Cap, you don’t really do things half way.  But I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop by, say hello.  I mean, I can leave if you want.  If this is some sort of solo quest thing, though, I’ll just head out again.  Say the word and I’m gone.”

“To be honest with you, we really need all the help we can get,” said Steve, and smiled, though he had to force the expression onto his face.  “It’s good to see you.”

“Yeah, you too,” said Clint.  “Sorry it’s like this, though.”

“Is anyone going to introduce me?” Sam asked.  “I mean, it’s fine, I’ll wait.  Just curious.”

“Yeah, Steve, rude,” said Clint, smirking.  He held out a hand.  “Clint Barton.  I’m an Avenger.   I’m guessing you’re the Falcon I’ve heard so much about?”

“I am,” said Sam.  “My wings were kind of clipped, though, so I’m grounded these days.”

“You should talk to Stark about that,” said Clint.  “He’d fix you up in a second.”

“Stark?  Like, Tony Stark?” Sam said, shaking Clint’s hand and laughing.  “Right, I’ll just have my people call his and set that up.  We’ll have brunch or something.”

Clint stared at him for a long moment.  “I like you, you can stay,” he said, finally.  “I can see why Cap brought you along.”

“Thanks, I guess,” said Sam.

The three of them all piled into the rental car Steve had gotten a hold of.  As they drove, Barton draped over the back seat and playing some game on his phone, Steve looked over at Sam.  “I can call him for you,” said Steve.  “Stark, I mean.  About new wings.”

Sam blinked at him.  “What, really?” he said.  “Just like that?”

“Sure,” said Steve.  “I had been meaning to, anyway.  You loved those wings.”

“Man,” said Sam, and shook his head.  “Sometimes I forget you’re you, you know?”

“I wish I could,” said Steve.  “Just, remind me.  Later.”

“You got it,” said Sam.

When they got to the base, it was even worse than the church in Austria.   There was nothing but blackened ash and the scorched remains of a building.  As far as Steve could see, there were no bodies.  He didn’t know if that was a relief or a horror.  “Right,” he said.  “Spread out.  See what we can find.”

They dug through, and Steve found a lock box with some papers that were only half burned.  As he was going through them, he listened into Clint and Sam’s conversation.

“Nat said it was brutal,” said Clint.  He held his arms out like he was embracing the wreckage.  “But this is _brutal_ brutal.”

“It is,” said Sam.

“I mean,” said Clint.  “She said it wasn’t pretty but – wow, look at it. One guy did this?”

“That’s the impression we’ve been operating under, yeah,” said Sam.

“And, uh,” said Clint.  “How’s Cap been dealing with it all?  Okay or…?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve watched them both sneak a glance at him before looking away.  Steve kept his attention on the charred papers in his hands.  They’d both clearly underestimated his heightened hearing.  They weren’t the first, and they wouldn’t be the last.  Sam sighed.  “Honestly?” Sam asked.  “Not great.  He thinks he’s fooling me but I’m onto him.”

“Keep an eye on that,” said Clint.

“Oh, don’t worry,” said Sam.  “I am.”

There was nothing to be found.

Clint went his way, Steve and Sam went theirs.

Poland was just as much a bust as Spain – nothing but ashy and broken building – and they found nothing in Bosnia but a replica of the base outside Lucerne.   

The trail went completely cold.

“Steve, man, I’ll follow you down to Antarctica if I have to, you know that,” said Sam.  They had spent the day sorting through another abandoned base.  This one didn’t even have any files – as far as Steve could tell, Bucky had never been there, as the Winter Soldier or otherwise.  “But we need a break.  I need one, anyway.  We need to go over all our info and see what we have.  And if we’re going to do that, it might as well be somewhere we can put our feet up for a day or two.”

Sam looked like he was bracing for an argument, but Steve – Steve knew he was right.  “You ever been to Paris?” he asked.  “Paris is nice.  I mean, it was seventy years ago, but I figure it’s the sort of place that holds up over time.”

Sam smiled wider than Steve had seen in a long time.  “When do we leave?” he asked.

They had only been in Paris two days when the trail flared to life and came to them.  Steve had went for an early morning run, Sam electing to sleep in and then get coffee at a café later on.  So when Steve’s phone rang, he just figured it was Sam, finally awake.

“Hey, Sam,” said Steve.  “What’s –”

“I’m chasing Bucky down Rue Saint-Jacques, towards Notre Dame,” Sam gasped out, “Steve, _get here_.”

Steve hung up and ran, pushing through tourists.  He thought he might’ve even knocked one man over, but he didn’t turn around to check.  But by the time he got near Notre Dame, his eyes narrowed in almost immediately on Sam, Sam who stuck out in the crowd on the bridge with the way his hands were propped on his knees and he was working on catching his breath.

“Where is he?” Steve asked.  “Which way?”

Sam waved a hand towards the other side of the river.  “He got in a crowd,” said Sam.  “I lost him.  I’m sorry, Steve, but he’s fast.  He got away.”

Steve let out a gust of air through his nose, turning and looking around as if Bucky would suddenly just appear.  He thought he’d maybe been here before, on this very bridge, while they were on leave in Paris during the war.  It would have been a month or so after Zola’s camp.  Dernier was showing them around, proudly boasting about his city.  Now, Steve jerked himself back to the present, and turned back to Sam.  “What happened?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said Sam.  “I was getting coffee and he just sort of – I looked up and he was sitting across the table from me.  I tried to get him to talk, he ran, I chased, here we are.”

“This doesn’t make any sense,” said Steve.  “Did he – did he say anything?”

“Yeah,” said Sam, and then just stopped, staring at Steve.  “Look, Steve –”

“Tell me what he said,” said Steve, but again, Sam hesitated.  Louder, with more emotion than he’d meant, Steve said, “Sam, tell me.”

“He said to stop following him,” said Sam.  “Said he didn’t want to be found and for us to back off.  Seemed pretty serious about it, too.”

Steve leaned against the wall for a second, closing his eyes.  Across the river, someone laughed, over loud and bright, and the sound grated against his already frazzled nerves.   He turned back to Sam.  “That’s good though, right?” he asked.

“Steve –”

“He came to us,” said Steve.  “That’s a good thing.”

“Maybe?” Sam said.  “But would you just –”

“You go east, I’ll head west,” said Steve.  “Maybe we can find him.  What was he wearing?”

Sam stared at Steve for a long, tense moment.  “Green hoodie,” he finally said.  “Black pants.  Black baseball hat.”

“Right,” said Steve.  “Split up, meet back at the hotel by four.”

Sam looked like he was going to say something, but instead he just said, “Four.  Got it.  Right.”

Steve glanced back only once as he moved west – Sam was still standing in the exact same spot on the bridge, unmoving, tourists milling around him to snap pictures of Notre Dame.  Steve figured he was probably just taking a few minutes to catch his breath, and continued on his way, scanning the crowd for anyone in a green hoodie and a black baseball hat.

He never found him.

When Steve got back to the hotel for the rest of the evening, Sam didn’t say much except to answer direct questions and even then, his answers were short, clipped.  Like his mind was a million miles away.  “Alright,” said Steve.  “You’ve been quiet all night.  What is it?”

Sam didn’t say anything for a long while.  “He said he wanted us to stop following him,” Sam said.  “And we spent all afternoon trying to follow him.”

“Yeah,” said Steve.  “Because he’s confused.  He’s trying to push us away.  He’s probably remembering and starting to panic or –”

“You don’t know if any of that is true,” Sam said.  He was quiet again, rubbing a hand over his head.  He sighed.  “Steve.  There’s something I need to say, and I don’t think that you’re going to take it very well.  But I can’t figure out any other way to say it.”

“Okay,” said Steve, slowly.

“We’re not making any headway,” said Sam.  “It’s been months.  All we’ve done is chase ghost stories and shadows.  You’re running yourself into the ground.”

“What are you talking about?” Steve said.  “You saw Bucky today.  You saw him.  He’s probably still in the city somewhere.”

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose, glancing away for a second.  He looked back at Steve again.  “Yeah.  I saw him today,” said Sam.  “And he doesn’t want you to find him.  If we didn’t guess that before, he’s spelled it out for us now.  Maybe…” Sam trailed off.

Steve crossed his arms.  “Say it,” he said, and even he himself was a little startled at how cold the words sounded.

Sam squared his shoulders.  “Maybe it’s time we give him what he wants,” said Sam.  “Maybe it’s time for us to stop.”

He’d known what Sam was going to say – of course he had known.  Still, the words hit him as hard as if Sam had reached out and slapped him across the face.  Maybe they even hit a little bit harder than that.  “No,” said Steve.  “That’s not an option.”

“Look, I know he was your best friend.  I know what they’ve put him through, and I know how this has to sound to you,” said Sam.  He held his hands up, placating, and the gesture made Steve somehow even angrier.  “But maybe we should consider giving him what he wants and –”

“Sam, Bucky’s counting on me.  Whether he knows it or not, he is counting on me.  And I’m not just going to turn my back on him like that, I won’t,” said Steve.  The room was suddenly too small.  He snagged his jacket off of the back of an armchair and said, “I’m going for some air.”

“Steve,” said Sam again, and stopped.

“Look, go home if you want.  I never asked you to come along,” said Steve, suddenly exhausted.  “I won’t ask you to stay either, or understand, or anything.  I’m grateful for everything that you’ve done, and can’t thank you enough.  I’ll call the next time I’m in the States.”

He walked out and kicked the door shut behind him.

Steve trailed around for hours in Paris that night, hands shoved deep in his pockets.  The last time he was here, it was 1944 and he and the others were on leave.  Peggy had even come to meet up with them, though she only had the time for a single drink.  Besides, Dernier was having too good a time, dragging them all around the city.  Even Bucky, so rare to smile, had laughed at his antics, and for a moment, one shining moment, everything had been alright.

The thing about Paris, Steve thought, trailing along the bank of the Seine, was that once the sun was down and the shadows stretched, it didn’t matter if it was 2014 or 1944, just after the Nazis pulled out.  The clothes were different, but the people the same.  Groups roving from bar to club, couples slinking off into the shadows, so enthralled with each other it was like everyone around them had ceased to exist, solitary figures pausing on a bridge to look out over the water.  The city was the same, too.  The buildings, the street lamps – it was, for a moment, like he was back in time.

“Paris, eh?” Dernier had said, throwing an arm out.  “The best city in the world!”

Falsworth, lighting a cigarette, shook his head and muttered something, but Steve had only picked up the words French and absolutely hopeless.

“It’s not half bad,” Bucky had agreed, and then elbowed Steve in the ribs.  “I mean, it’s no Brooklyn, but it’ll do.”

Missing them - all of them, Peggy and the Commandos and even Howard and, God, missing Bucky –came in waves, rising and falling, cresting and breaking, and tonight Steve was caught in a riptide, pulled out to sea.  Tonight, Steve was drowning.

It was almost morning by the time Steve got back to the hotel.  Sam was sitting on the bed, legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, arms crossed over his chest, staring out the window.   He glanced over when Steve shut the door. 

“You’re still here,” Steve said.

“Well, yeah,” said Sam.  “Even if I was planning on leaving – which, by the way, I’m not – do you really think I’d have been able to find a flight at this hour?  We don’t all have access to super-secret spy jets, you know.”

“I guess not,” said Steve.  He sat down on his bed, toed off his shoes, and mirrored Sam’s position.  He sighed.  “Look.  I’m not going to apologize for what I said, but I am sorry for how it came out.  You deserve better than that.”

“It’s alright,” said Sam.  “I’ve been thinking about it, and I don’t know what I expected would happen.  I was out of line.”

“No, I was,” said Steve.  He pushed his hair out of his face and looked up at the ceiling.  “I guess I have trouble telling where the lines are, when it comes to Bucky.”

“You don’t say,” said Sam, and Steve was startled by the laugh that popped free.  Sam grinned, and then said, serious, “Can I say something, though?  And then I won’t bring it up again.”

“Yeah,” said Steve.  “Anything.”

“You need to start thinking about what your play is going to be if he doesn’t let you find him,” said Sam.  “I’m not saying it’s going to happen, but you need to let yourself prepare for that as much as you’re preparing for finding him.”

Steve didn’t say anything.  He heaved himself up to his feet and walked into the bathroom.  “You should get some sleep,” he said.  “We need to start moving again.”

\--

They were in Florence when the pieces fell together and left Steve with a finished puzzle he didn’t really want to comprehend.

 It was after a conversation with Tony about getting Sam set up with some new wings – Stark Industries had built the original prototypes – and Tony made an off handed comment about how if he saw Natasha, thank her for the paczki she’d sent from Warsaw.  “They were actually fantastic, not often I actually am grateful, but here we are,” Tony had said.

Steve didn’t pay attention to the rest of the conversation.  He spent three days with the sentence rolling around in his head – thank her for the paczki she’d sent from Warsaw – before he finally pulled himself together enough to do something about it.

“Natasha was in Poland,” said Steve.

Sam was quiet.  “She could’ve been there for anything,” he said.  “It doesn’t mean it had anything to do with Bucky.”

“No, I know,” he said.  There was a roiling in the pit of his stomach , something that was slowly spreading out into his muscles and quietly spreading through him.  He cleared his throat.  “And Clint knew where to find us.  In Spain.  He said Natasha told him where to find us, that he ran into her.  So she must have been there, too.”

Sam looked exhausted for a minute.  “I need you to take a second and really listen to yourself,” he said.

“I know, I sound like a paranoid lunatic,” he said.

“Well,” said Sam, and laughed.  “That’s a little stronger than I would have put it.”

Steve didn’t laugh, didn’t smile.  “I need to know for sure,” he said.  He pulled out his phone and fired off a text to Clint – _I need to talk to Natasha.  Have her call ASAP_.  When he looked up, Sam was watching him, something almost like pity in his face.  “Don’t,” said Steve.  “Don’t look at me like that.”

“I can’t help it,” said Sam.  “I’m worried about you.  You’ve been on edge, even more so than usual.  Ever since Paris –”

“I’m fine,” said Steve.  “It’s fine.  Everything is fine.”

The next morning, after Steve showered and dressed, he walked out of the bathroom to find Natasha sitting at the hotel room’s wooden table, casual as if she’d been there the whole time.  She and Sam were talking quietly, and fell silent as soon as Steve walked into the room.  “Morning, Steve,” she said.  “Heard you needed to talk to me about something.”

“Sam,” said Steve.  “Could we get some privacy?”

“Sure,” said Sam, after hesitating and looking back and forth between the two of them.  He backed away and snagged his jacket off of the back of the chair.  “I’ll just go – look at art or something.”

“There’s a great place for coffee four blocks south,” said Natasha.  She didn’t look away from Steve.  “If you get sick of art.”

“Right, okay.  I’ll be there, then,” said Sam.  “Just – come find me when you two are finished here.”

The door latched behind him with a soft click, leaving Steve and Natasha staring at each other, the only sound in the room the ticking of the clock.  Natasha crossed her arms.  “You called me, Steve,” she finally said.  “That usually means there’s something that you, the caller, wants to talk about.  Is there or is this purely a social call?”

“There’s a reason,” said Steve.  “Were you ever going to tell me you’ve been working with Bucky?”

She didn’t so much as bat an eye.  “I guessed that’s what this was going to be,” she said.  She didn’t even try to deny it which – which Steve had not expected.  At all.  “How’d you figure it out?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Steve said.  “It should’ve come from you.”

She tilted her head, her mouth twisting in a wry smile.  “Then it never would have come at all.”

There was something hot and sickening that had been festering under Steve’s skin ever since Paris, since Bucky approached Sam but not him, since he told Sam to go home and stormed out into the night.  He was angry.  He was so, so angry and Hydra wasn’t good enough a target anymore.  Hydra was a faceless shadow, evaporating no matter what angle he hit from.  Being angry with Hydra was shapeless, simmering – this was something different.  This was Sam, telling him that maybe there was nothing to be done.  This was Clint, exchanging tight-eyed glances with Sam when they thought that Steve wasn’t looking.  This was Bucky, running and running and running – always running further away from Steve.

This was Natasha, sitting across from him and not letting a single thing slip on her carefully blank face.

“Do you know where he is now?” Steve asked, quiet, words shaking ever so slightly on their ends.

“It’s not that simple,” she said.

Steve turned around, scrubbing a hand over his face and taking a moment to try and remember how to breathe without ending each exhale with an actual roar.  He thought he knew what it felt like, to be at the end of his rope.  He’d been wrong.  Here he was, sitting in a hotel room in Florence, Bucky so close Steve felt like he was just on the other side of a flimsy door, and Natasha was the only thing in his way.

“It’s not a hard question,” said Steve.  Natasha shifted slightly in her chair, like she knew how close to the edge Steve was straying – like she was getting ready for a fight.  “Yes or no, Natasha – do you know where he is, right now?”

Steve could feel her staring at his back.  “Yes,” she finally said.

It took a moment for it to sink in, that Steve had been right, that Natasha – “You’re going to tell me where he is,” he said, turning to face her.

“No,” she said.  “I’m not.”

Steve slammed a fist down on the table, the wood cracking.  “God _damn_ it, Natasha!” he snarled.  Natasha didn’t even blink.  It made the horrible rage flare up into something even worse.  “You tell me or –”

“Or what?” she asked.  “You going to beat it out of me, Cap?  Going to hit me until I crack?”

“Don’t you dare,” Steve said.  “Don’t you – how _dare_ you –” he cut himself off, forcing himself to take gulping breaths, trying to get his hands to stop shaking.

“Stop that,” she said.  “Let me have it, I can handle it.  Come on, Steve.”

“What?” he said, thrown, off kilter in a a way that he hadn’t felt since – since – since the mask flew off the Winter Soldier’s face, since Bucky stared back at him, blank faced and without even a flicker of recognition.

“You’re killing yourself right now.  You’re horrified and upset and there’s no one for you to fight,” she said.  “So throw it at me.  Shout about how terrible everything about this situation is.  Let it out.  I can take it.”

Steve stared at her for a long moment, and then he started shouting.  She sat, unmoving and unflinching, while he screamed at her about how these days everyone was crashing down on him and trying to stop him, how his friends were the ones getting the most in the way and he didn’t understand why no one was getting it, why Sam and Natasha seemed to be trying to turn him back at every turn.  How he didn’t understand why Bucky wouldn’t just let him help.  Finally, the heart of it came flying out of his mouth.  “I need to find him, Natasha, I have to fix this, I let him fall and I didn’t go after him and I have to find him and fix this!  I need to,” Steve stopped, swallowed thickly, and said, “It’s my fault.  It’s my fault and I have to – I have to…” he trailed off, the words finally drying up.

He sat heavily across the table from Natasha, and buried his face in his hands.  He felt wrung out and empty, like the final confession had reached into his chest and yanked something vulnerable and ugly and let it out into the air for the world to see.  He could still feel it, though, the purposeless anger.  It was still there, just below the surface.  But it was smaller now.  Manageable.  Steve took a shaky breath.  Another.  Another.

“Sorry,” he said, voice mangled from the deluge, muffled behind his hands.

“Are you done?”  asked Natasha.

“Sorry,” Steve said again.

“Look at me,” she said.  “Steve, hey, look at me.”

He dropped his hands and glanced at her.  The blank slate of an expression was gone, and she was smiling sadly, a look in her eyes like she knew what Steve was feeling, even if Steve himself couldn’t quite wrap his head around it.

“First, none of this has anything to do with you,” she said.  “Get your head out of your ass, Rogers.  It isn’t like you and it isn’t flattering.”

“If that’s true,” said Steve, suddenly very, very tired straight down to his bones and marrow and somewhere even deeper.  “If it isn’t me he’s trying to avoid, why won’t you tell me where he is?”

“Because he asked me not to,” she said.  Steve leaned his forehead against the heels of his hands and stared down at the splintered table top.  Natasha sighed.  “I know it’s hard, but you don’t know what it’s like, to have someone reach into your head and pull you out.  You don’t know what it’s like to try and pull yourself back together into a person again. This isn’t about you – it’s about him.  The only reason he’s running away is because you keep chasing him.”

Steve didn’t say anything.  She sighed.

“Let’s say that I tell you where he is,” she said.  “What do you think happens next?”

“What do you mean?” Steve asked.

“I mean, what’s your move?” she asked.  “He doesn’t want to be found, so you’re going to have to chase him.  Let’s say you manage to catch him, after that, even though I’m not sure you’d be able to.  So you catch him.  He won’t want to go with you, so you’re going to have to fight him.  Let’s say you win that, too.  What’s next?  Tie him up and force him back to the States?”

Steve stared at her, mouth moving as he tried to come up with a response and failed.

“Okay, but let’s say he gets away which is the more likely scenario,” Natasha said.  She leaned forward, pressing her pointer finger down on the table with each new point.  “So you go bursting in, he runs.  I’m the only one who knows where he’s been holed up, so he knows I’m the one who told you.  He stops trusting me, stops letting me in on his plans.  He goes into dangerous situations alone with no one to watch his back.  He’ll get hurt, eventually.  Is that what you want to happen?  Are either of these the road you want to go down?”

“No.  No, of course not,” he said.  He buried his face in his hands again.  “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” she said.

“At least,” Steve said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms.  He sounded weak and pleading to his own ears.  “Can you at least tell me if he’s alright?”

“Do you want a pretty lie or the truth?” she asked.  Steve just stared at her.  She sighed again.  “No.  He’s not.  But he’s better than he was, even if that’s not saying much.  He’s trying.”

Steve nodded, not trusting his voice.  “Does he remember anything?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said.  “I think so.  But to be honest with you, Steve, we don’t talk about much outside of planning the attacks on the bases.”

Again, Steve nodded.  He stared down at his hands.  “I’m glad he has someone,” he said.  And it was true.  It was somehow true even as it gutted him that Steve wasn’t that person.  He looked up at Natasha.  “But it doesn’t mean I’m not pissed as hell with you.  Or that I’m going to just – just give up and go home.”

“I know,” she said.  “Giving up isn’t in your nature.  But maybe you should consider that going home doesn’t mean giving up.  Maybe it just means giving him the space and time that he needs.”

“You sound like Sam,” he said.

“I’m glad to hear it,” she said.  She glanced away and back again.  “I am sorry,” she said.  “I wish I could tell you want you want to hear.”

“Yeah,” said Steve.  He stood up walked to look out the window.  “Yeah, me too.”

They stayed in quiet for a long time.  Steve wasn’t sure how long.  Natasha finally stood.  “I’m going to go,” she said.  “I’ll send Sam back.  Take care of yourself, Steve.”

As soon as she was gone, Steve sank down to sit on his bed and stared blankly at the wall.  He didn’t notice Sam coming back in until he pulled a chair over next to Steve and straddled it, arms hanging over the back and crossed at the wrists.  “Natasha told me what just happened,” he said. 

“I think she agrees with you,” Steve said.  “Thinks we should just throw in the towel.”

“That’s not what I said and you know it,” said Sam.  “I just said to prepare yourself for –”

“I know,” said Steve.

Neither of them said anything for a long time.  Sam was the first one to break the quiet.  “Okay,” he said.  “What’s our next move, then?”

“We go to the base, like we planned,” said Steve.  “I’m not giving up.  I’m _not._ ”

\--

Sam let him break off on his own as soon as they burst in through the base.  It was old, dusty, abandoned.  Just like all the others.

And when Steve kicked in a door and found himself staring down one of the chairs, it was like everything around him stilled, tunneled, focused in on the single chair.  Steve walked up to it, stood next to it.  It had the same stink of old blood and stale fear hanging in the air around it.  There was  nothing to distinguish it from any of the others he and Sam had come across.

This time, though – this time was different.

Steve walked behind it, looking at the panels, at the headpieces.  He reached up, and with a great wrench, he tore the panels loose, and then held them in his hands, feeling the smooth metal, looking at the places where the electricity would come out.  He stared at it.  He knew how it worked.  He pictured it closing around Bucky’s face.  He pictured the electricity starting to pour through and burning Bucky out of his own head.  Steve didn’t even realize he had crushed the pieces until he was hurling them, nothing more than mangled bits of metal, as far away from him as he could.

He stumbled back a step, and his back hit the wall.  He pressed his hand against his forehead, and suddenly couldn’t breathe.  It was like when he was younger, smaller, when his lungs would lock and not work right.  It was like sitting in the hotel room, staring at Natasha’s unblinking face as she told him she knew where Bucky was.  Steve spun, and wrenched a rail from the wall.  He curled his fingers around the rail, and then looked back at the chair, and started hitting.  He hit it, and hit it, and let out a roar, kicking it and taking the rod to it again.

“Steve?”

Steve smashed the rod down again.  Again.   _Who the hell is Bucky?_  Again.  Sending one of the restraints flying against the wall.  _Because he asked me not to._   Smashing the cold, stiff seat.  Again.  _You’re my mission._   Again.   A blow for every year, he thought, a hit for every year they kept Bucky locked away, every year they hurt him, every year – every hurt – for everything they ever –

“Steve!  Steve, stop!”

He did, and threw the rod away.  It speared into the wall and stayed there, the end vibrating.  The room was silent except for Steve’s panting breaths as he looked down at the crater he’d made where the chair used to be.  Sam was there, at his side but staying a distance away, watching Steve like he was worried Steve was going to start hitting something other than the chair, now that the chair was gone.

“Talk to me, Steve,” Sam said.  “Where’s your head at right now?”

“We’re not going to find him, are we,” Steve said.  It wasn’t a question and he knew the answer already, but he still needed to hear it.

Sam sighed, his mouth twisting into an unhappy sort of almost smile.  “No,” he said.  “No, we’re not.”

Steve nodded.  He forced himself to relax his hands from the tight fists they were curled into.  “What am I supposed to do?” he asked.  His voice cracked.

“I don’t know,” said Sam.  “But you’re not going to have to do it alone.  Whatever the hell it is.”

“Okay,” Steve said.  He sniffed, wiping at his prickling eyes with the back of his hand.  He nodded again.  “We’re going home now,” he said.  “I think it’s time to go home.”

Sam stepped to the side.  “Your call,” he said.  “I’ll follow, whatever you decide.”

Steve let out a shuddering breath, and tried to tell himself that he wasn’t abandoning Bucky.  It didn’t work.  “Let’s get out of here,” he said.  As they sped down the road and back towards Frankfurt, he stared in the side view mirror, like he always did.  Like maybe this time he’d see Bucky waiting somewhere behind them.  He thought he’d probably be doing that for the rest of his life, looking over his shoulder for someone who didn’t want to be found.

There was nothing but empty road. 

Steve closed his eyes.

\--

He and Sam didn’t talk for nearly two weeks.  They texted, they sent one line emails – but after so long with only each other for company, they both needed the break.  As a result, Steve found himself falling into old habits.  Grocery shopping on his own.  Running a different route than usual.  Generally avoiding anywhere he could run into anyone he knew.

Sam, true to form, was the one to eventually come and find him.  Steve opened the door to find Sam, a six pack of beer in one hand and a houseplant in the other.

“Hey, man,” said Sam..  “I, uh.  I realized that I never got you a housewarming gift for the new place.”

“I know I’ve told you I can’t get drunk,” said Steve, leaning in the doorframe.

“What?  These?” he asked, lifting up the beer as if he were surprised to find it there.  “Oh, these are for me.  This is for you.”

He held out the plant.

“It’s a jade plant,” said Sam.  “You leave it in the sun and water it like, once a month.  The perfect plant for the modern day spy.”

“It’s great,” said Steve, taking the pot.  Sam walked in, making a beeline to the kitchen, sliding the six pack into the fridge.  Steve trailed after him, and said, “I feel like I’m the one who should be giving you something.  I was the asshole.”

“You’re grieving,” said Sam.  “Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m not grieving,” Steve said, but there was no real fight in the words.  “But I am sorry.”

“Yeah, you are.  And I forgive you,” said Sam.  He looked around.  “This place is nice.  Big, too.”

Steve shrugged with one shoulder.  “What can I say?” he asked.  “I’m a big guy.”

Sam hummed, leaning back to look down towards where the bedrooms and bathroom was.  “How many beds?” he asked.

“Two,” said Steve.  Sam gave him that look again.  It wasn’t pity, not really, but it was close enough that it hurt to see directed at him.  “I figured I could turn one into an office or a trophy room or something.  If he doesn’t – there are other things I can do with it.”

“That’s good.  Having a plan is good,” said Sam.  He leaned on his elbows on Steve’s counter.  “So how’re you doing?” he asked.  “Really.”

“Not great,” said Steve.  “But I’m getting there.”

Sam smiled.  “That’s good to hear,” he said.  “Now.  What movies do you have to watch?  Because I have a few out in my car I could always grab.”

And Steve fell back into routine.  Run with Sam.  Volunteer work.  Do some press.  Run errands.  Visit Peggy.  All the while, he kept one eye looking over his shoulder, like maybe this time.  Maybe today.  But it never came of anything.  One day, nearly two months after he and Sam returned from Europe, he got a text from an unknown number, with nothing but an address and a time.

He almost didn’t go.  But Natasha, for all she had kept herself solidly between Steve and Bucky, deserved better than that.  So he went, and found himself walking up to a coffee shop, Natasha perched outside at one of the tables.  “Morning, stranger,” she said.  “I ordered you a latte.”

“Thanks,” said Steve, and sat down next to her.  “How long have you been in town?”

“Just got in last night,” she said.

They both sat and drank their coffee.  Steve couldn’t find a way to talk to her without bringing up the last time they had been face-to-face.  When he had screamed at her.  “I never said thank you,” said Steve.  “For what you did for me.  Back in Florence.”

“You needed a target,” she said.  “It was me or Sam.”

“Surprised Sam let you,” said Steve.

“We flipped for it,” said Natasha.  She took a sip of her tea.  “Besides, you two had been living in close quarters for long enough he probably would’ve started yelling back, and that wouldn’t have helped anything.”

“Probably,” said Steve.  Natasha watched him closely.

“Go ahead,” she said.  “Ask me.”

“Just,” said Steve, and pushed his hands through his hair.  “Tell me if he’s safe.”

“The lives we live?  None of us are ever safe.  You know that,” she said, and slid her sunglasses on.  “But I think, right now, he’s about as safe as he’s ever going to be.  Trust me on that.”

Steve nodded, but couldn’t quite bring himself to actually say anything else.

“Go home, Steve,” she said, and stood up.  As she walked to leave, she put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed.  “It’s going to be okay,” she said, and walked away. 

Steve didn’t watch her go.  He stayed at the coffee shop for another hour before leaving his money on the table, shoving his hands deep in his pockets, and slowly walking back to his house.  The entire walk, he kept his eyes directed down by his feet, deliberately stepping around every crack and hole in the sidewalk.  It wasn’t until he got back to the house that he stopped in his tracks.

The man was sitting on the stoop, elbows propped up on his knees, wearing long sleeves and a pair of gloves even in the heat of the day.  His head was bowed, face covered by the hair hanging down at the baseball cap pulled low.  But Steve didn’t need to be able to see his face to recognize him.   Steve could see it in the slope of his shoulders, the way he was rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.

His feet were moving like someone else had taken control of them, like maybe he had been possessed, like there was a rope pulling him in closer and closer to where Bucky was sitting.  Bucky, who didn’t even glance up as Steve approached, though he did go completely still.  When Steve was maybe three feet away, he stopped, and all of the things he had planned on saying, all the carefully worded greetings fell straight out of his head, and what came out was a slightly breathless, “Hi.”

Bucky looked up to Steve’s knees and said, “Heya, Steve.”

“It’s,” Steve said, and his words stuck.  He forced them out anyway.  “It’s, uh.  It’s been a while.”

“Yeah,” said Bucky.  He cleared his throat and scratched at a scabbing cut on his cheek.  When he spoke again, his voice was rough, quiet.  “Is it alright if I stay here for a little?”

“Of course it is,” said Steve.  He held out his hand, expecting Bucky to ignore it entirely.  Instead, Bucky took it almost immediately.  He let Steve pull him to his feet, and when he wavered slightly, what little color that was in his face draining away, he let Steve steady him with a hand on his back.  Still, Steve dropped his hand as soon as Bucky seemed a little bit steadier, but Bucky reached out and grabbed onto Steve’s arm.  Like he was worried Steve might bolt.  Steve wanted to laugh at the thought.

“Listen,” Bucky said.  “I’m not –I’m not okay.”

Something not unlike terror pooled in Steve’s stomach.  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

Bucky seemed to think about it for a while.  “No.  Just – tired,” he said.  He looked off to the right.  “Some punk’s been chasing me for months.”

“Maybe if the jerk that punk’s been chasing had stopped running away, he wouldn’t be as tired,” said Steve.  Bucky huffed, and for a moment Steve thought he was going to smile.  It didn’t happen.

“I mean it,” said Bucky.  He pushed his metal hand through his hair, still holding onto Steve’s arm even though he had long since stopped wobbling.  “I’m not okay.  I’m not.  I’m not him.  I’m – I’m fucked up, Steve.  I am so fucked up.”

Steve did laugh then, quiet, but there was no happiness in the sound.  “I guess that makes two of us then,” he said.

Bucky met his gaze for the first time since the Potomac.  He didn’t say anything, just tightened his grip on Steve’s arm.  He let out a breath.  “Are you sure you’re okay with me staying –”

“I’m sure,” said Steve.  He fished his keys out of his coat pocket and got the door open.  He looked at Bucky then, and when he smiled he wondered if it looked as worn and run down as Steve felt.  “Welcome home,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original prompt: Post CAtWS- How about Steve's brought Bucky to Stark Tower and HYDRA comes calling to collect. Featuring any/all the Avengers you wish


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOOP-DEE-DOO GUESS WHAT GOT TOO LONG AGAIN? I lied about the first chapter being the longest. Apparently that is just going to be par for the course. Any typos/grammar errors are totally on me though.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Bucky leaned heavily against the wall and pulled his boots off, one at a time.  He left them sitting in a somewhat muddy pile on Steve’s rug, and did not stand straight again.  He stayed propped up on the wall like he was about to keel over and join his boots on the floor.

“So,” said Steve.  He felt too big in his own house, felt like he was crowding Bucky, like the walls were closing around him in a way he’d never noticed before.  He pushed the feeling away, and put his hands on his hips.  “This is my house.”

Bucky glanced around.  His eyes lingered on doorways and windows, and Steve’s stomach jolted when he realized that Bucky was cataloguing exit points.  Then, Bucky took up his habit of not looking directly at Steve.  This time, his gaze was leveled around Steve’s right shoulder.  “Can I use your shower?” Bucky asked.

“Bathroom is the second door on the right,” said Steve.  “Towels are on the top shelf – if you toss your clothes into the hallway, I can put them in the wash for you?”

“I don’t have any other clothes,” Bucky said.  He pulled at the edge of the sleeve over his metal hand, tugging it slightly.

“You can borrow some of mine,” said Steve.  Bucky was still leaning against the wall like it was the only thing holding him up.  “I assume you’re going to want to sleep, then?”

Bucky nodded.

“Okay.  There’s a room, just next to the bathroom.  You can stay there, as long as you’d like,” said Steve.  “I’ll leave the clothes outside the bathroom door for you.  Okay?”

 “Okay,” said Bucky, after a second.  He pushed himself away from the wall, wavered like he had when Steve had first pulled him to his feet, and then shuffled off towards the bathroom.  He quietly shut the door behind him.

Steve pushed a hand through his hair and let out a sharp gust of air through his nose.  He went into his room and dug through his dresser.  He dug out a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, and after a second added a hoodie to the pile.  Walking to the bathroom door, he found that Bucky had left his dirty clothes in a rumpled pile.  Steve set the clean ones down and gathered the dirty clothes up – and a sheathed knife fell out from where it was tangled up.  He could hear the water running on the other side of the door.

It was heavy in Steve’s hands, the blade catching in the light as he turned it to look at it from a few different angles.  After a moment of hesitating, he slid it back into the sheath and set it on top of the neat stack of clothing outside the bathroom door.  He looked at the odd, incongruous pile of things for a minute – the softest clothes he owned with the weapon on top – and then backed away.  He snagged his phone off the counter, listened to the sound of the running water, and dialed Sam’s number.

He got the machine.  “Hey, Sam,” he said.  “Listen.  Call me as soon as you get this, okay?  It’s important.  It’s – just call me.  Please.  I’ll talk to you later.  It’s Steve, by the way.  Call me back.”

He hung up, and stared out the window for a long moment.  Then Steve went to make up the futon.  He dug his softest flannel sheets out of the closet, putting them on the mattress and then adding a comforter.  He tossed a few pillows up at the front, and stood to survey his handiwork.  Steve realized that he couldn’t hear the water running anymore.

He turned around and jumped, pressing one hand over his heart.  “Bucky,” he said.  “Wow, you’re quiet, huh?”

Bucky stood in the doorway.  The sweatpants were just barely too long, the cuffs pooling around his feet on the floor.  Likewise was the sweatshirt just this side of two big, the sleeves covering Bucky’s hands so only his fingers were showing.  His hair was tucked behind his ears, and he was holding out the sheathed knife, the weapon flat on his palm.

“I don’t want this,” said Bucky.

“Won’t it make you feel safer?” Steve asked.  He felt like he was walking on a lake that was frozen over with ice, and it could start to crack at any moment.  He felt like he had no idea what he was doing.

“No,” said Bucky. 

There was an implication hanging off of the word that Steve didn’t want to think about, that nothing was going to make Bucky feel safer.  Bucky was still holding out the knife and still looked about three seconds from collapsing in a heap on Steve’s living room carpet.  So Steve took the knife.  It felt awkward and wrong in his palm.  “Okay,” said Steve.  He cleared his throat.  “Okay, I’ll just – sleep well.  If you need anything, I’ll be around.”

Bucky nodded, crossing his arms and curving his shoulders.

“Okay,” said Steve, and walked out into the living room.  He looked down at the heavy sheath his hand, and then tossed the knife over onto a chair cushion.  It bounced slightly.  Sinking to sit on the couch, Steve pressed his palms against his knees and stared at where Bucky’s boots were still in a pile.  He didn’t know how long he sat there, not thinking about anything in particular beyond the fact that _Bucky was here,_ Bucky was here and Steve was staring at his boots, and he couldn’t seem to move past that point.

He glanced over his shoulder.  Bucky had left the door open.  Steve could see him walking the edge of the room, see the way he ran his hands along the shelving and window, checking, checking, rechecking.

Steve looked away again.  Eventually he heard the rustling of sheets, and then silence.  He looked over again.  The room was dark.  He went back to staring at Bucky’s boots.

When his phone rang, Steve startled enough that he almost went into a defensive crouch.  It took a moment of hectic searching before he found the phone sitting on the counter, and it was Sam’s number flashing across the screen.

“Hold on one second,” Steve said when he answered, and stepped out the front door.  “Hey,” he said.  He thought it was impressive, how little his voice was shaking.

“Hey yourself,” said Sam.  “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.  Wasn’t clear from that message if you wanted me to call you back or not.  I mean –”

“Bucky’s here,” said Steve.

“What?” asked Sam.

“Bucky’s here.  He’s at my house,” said Steve.  Sam didn’t say anything for long enough a time that Steve worried that the call had dropped.  “Sam?  You still there?”

“Yeah, I just,” said Sam.  “I’m going to need you to run that by me one more time.”

“He was waiting outside my door,” said Steve.  “I came home and he was here.”

“Holy shit,” said Sam.  “Do you need me to come over?  I mean, he hasn’t killed you yet, clearly, but if you think he’s going to try and hurt you or –”

“No, no,” said Steve.  “No.  He hasn’t tried to do anything like that.  To be honest with you, he showered and is asleep on my futon.  That’s all I’ve got.”

“Huh,” said Sam.

“Yeah,” said Steve.  “I know.”

Sam was quiet again.  “How’re you?” he asked.

The question caught Steve off guard.  “What?”

“I mean, dude shows up out of nowhere after we spent months looking for him, after you’d finally started to – I just mean, how’re you doing?”

“Honestly?” Steve asked.  “I don’t know.”

“Kind of a theme with you,” said Sam, and Steve laughed.   Sam asked, “Are you sure you don’t want me to come over?”

“Probably for the best right now,” said Steve.  He wondered what Bucky would do, if he woke up and Sam was there.  He wondered if he would leave.  Steve cleared his throat around the sudden lump of panic that lodged there.  “I don’t want – I mean, if he gets –”

“No, I get it,” said Sam, and Steve could actually hear the smile in his voice.  “You don’t want to ambush him with the Welcome Wagon.  Baby steps, right?”

“Right,” said Steve.  “But just for now, I mean –”

“Steve, relax,” said Sam.  “You’re fine.  But I will be expecting texts from you every two hours or so, okay?  Keep me updated, in the loop, make sure you’re still alive, all that.  Deal?”

“Deal,” said Steve.  He let out a shaky breath.

“It’s going to be okay,” said Sam.  “Try not to freak out too much.”

“I’m not freaking out,” said Steve.

“You’re freaking out a little,” said Sam.  “But I need to go.  You sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah,” said Steve.  “Yes.  Thank you, Sam.  For everything.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Sam.  “Every two hours though.  I mean it.”

“You got it,” said Steve.  They said their goodbyes, and Steve shoved his phone into his pocket.  He stood on his stoop for a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose and forcing himself to take deep and even breaths.  Then, he went back into the house, almost tripping over Bucky’s boots on his way in.

He walked over to the door to his spare room – to Bucky’s room.  Steve paused, looking through the open doorway.  All he could see of Bucky was the tangled mess of dark hair poking out from where he was curled in a tight ball under the comforter.  He was completely still.  Steve pulled the door shut as quietly as he could.

In the end, Bucky slept, waking only to shuffle to the bathroom, to the kitchen for water, and then back to the futon again, for almost twenty hours.   Steve spent the time cleaning as quietly as he could, puttering around and doing nothing in particular, shooting texts off to Sam every couple of hours.  At some point he started dozing off in front of the muted television, head tipping, jolting awake.  It was like he thought, if he were to sleep, he would wake to an empty house and find it had all been a cruel dream.

But around eight the next morning, while Steve was making himself breakfast, he turned around to find Bucky standing there, not looking at Steve in a very determined kind of way.  “Bucky,” Steve said.  He paused, scrambling for words, and then asked, “How’re you feeling?”

Bucky seemed to think the question over for longer than it warranted.  “Better?” he said, and it came out sounding like a question.  He repeated it, a little more confident, a little more solid.  “Better.”

“Good,” said Steve.  He gestured towards one of the stools by the counter.  “Want to sit?  I’m making food.  You have to be starving by now.”

“I guess,” said Bucky.  He sat but stayed hunched, arms still crossed and shoulders rounded.  Steve didn’t know how to make that stop – he only knew that he needed to figure it out as soon as humanly possible.

“Do you still drink coffee?” asked Steve.  Bucky shrugged, so Steve filled up a mug and pushed it over to him.   Bucky paused, looked at the mug, and then looked at Steve.  Steve smiled.  “Try it?” he asked, and nudged it closer.  Bucky picked it up, and took a single, cautious sip.

“I used to drink this,” said Bucky.  It sounded like a question.  He took another sip.

“Yeah,” said Steve.  “During the war, you pretty much went through it by the gallon.”

“The war,” Bucky echoed.  He tapped a finger against the side of the mug, and looked up at Steve and said, “I went to the museum.”

“To the exhibit?” Steve asked.  Bucky nodded once, shortly.  Steve cleared his throat.  “And?”

“And,” said Bucky.  His eyes slid out of focus, fixing on something Steve couldn’t see.  “He had my face.  He had.  He had – had a family, hobbies, a life, friends.  And they took him away.  They took all of it away.  I needed to take it back.  To try, at least.”

“Did you find anything?” Steve asked.  He loaded half the eggs up and put the plate down in front of Bucky, sliding a fork next to it.

“Some.  Pieces,” said Bucky.  “Sometimes I remember things and forget them again.  Sometimes I don’t.  Sometimes I wish I would.  It’s.  I don’t know how to describe it.”

They were both quiet for a beat.

“I wish you would have let me help you,” said Steve, the words falling out before he could stop them.

Bucky didn’t smile, not exactly, but it was a close thing, like he was trying to remember how.  “You did, though,” he said.  “You gave me my name back.”

“You know what I mean,” said Steve.

“Yes, I do,” said Bucky.  He sighed and looked down at his hands.  Outside, a dog started to bark at something.  Bucky made a frustrated noise and said, “I’m not great at talking.”

“Some things never change,” Steve said, going for levity.  It didn’t have the desired effect.  Bucky shook his head and looked away.  Steve crossed his arms.  “It’s okay.  Forget I said anything.”

“No,” said Bucky.  “I want to – I just –” he broke off again and stared down at his hands, jaw clenched.

“Bucky, it’s okay,” Steve said.  He sounded more like he meant it this time.  Thought that he probably meant it more this time, too.  He was tired, exhausted, wrung out, and Bucky was sitting next to him.  Bucky was here.  “We can figure it out.  We’ve got time.”

And Steve couldn’t stop it then, the smile that rolled across his face like the tide coming in.   Bucky glanced up, frowned, his eyebrows drawing together, and the expression was so familiar that it made Steve’s chest ache but he couldn’t stop smiling.  “What?” Bucky asked.

“Nothing,” said Steve.  They had time.  _They had time_.  He attempted to rein in his grin and couldn’t so he stopped trying.   “I’m just really happy you’re here.”

Bucky stared at him for a moment, like he didn’t understand what Steve was saying.  Then he shook his head again, looked away again.  But he’d relaxed, like something had slackened in the line of his shoulders and down his back.  “You’re such a sap,” he muttered.

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve said, and then straightened.  “Your food is going to get cold.”

\--

Steve had a new list.  To an outside eye, it was a random assortment of items.  To Steve and Bucky, it was practically a minefield.

Oatmeal.

(The third full day that Bucky was with him, Steve made both of them oatmeal for breakfast.  Bucky had stared at it for nearly twenty minutes before forcing himself to take a bite, and then spent the rest of the morning curled up next to the toilet, dry heaving periodically.  Steve asked him if he knew what about it set him off.  “I don’t remember,” was all Bucky said, through gritted teeth, in a way that made Steve think he did remember but just didn’t want to talk about it.  So Steve dropped it, added it to his list, and threw away what was left in the Quaker container.)

Touching Bucky’s back at all.

(Steve had tapped him on the shoulder – Bucky had grabbed his arm and threw him into a wall.  Steve had been dazed, the room spinning for a minute, and when he grounded himself again it was to Bucky, near panicked, crouched next to him and hands hovering over Steve like he wanted to check him but couldn’t bring himself.  “I’m alright, Bucky,” Steve had said.  “I’m alright.”  And he was.  But that didn’t stop Bucky from locking himself in his room for two days straight.)

The sound a knife made against a cutting board.

Car alarms.

Matches being lit.

The oven buzzer.

Every day, Steve found himself writing down something else that triggered Bucky so that he could avoid it entirely.  Anything to keep from Bucky closing off as quick as if curtains were being drawn, pulling back from the world for as short a time as twenty minutes or as long as days.  Steve tried to talk to Bucky about it, see if there was anything they could do to figure out a potential trigger before it became a problem, but that made Bucky shut down just as much as something actually setting him off.

Two weeks after Bucky arrived, Steve decided to call in backup.

“Hello, Stranger,” said Sam, when Steve opened the door for him.  He had his arms laden down with grocery bags.  Bucky got nervous in crowds, got quiet and stiff like his bones had been replaced with iron.  He had told Steve to just go by himself, that Bucky would be fine alone.  Steve had just had food delivered until today.  Sam grinned now.  “Long time no see.  I almost forgot what that face of yours looked like.”

“It’s good to see you.  Here, let me grab some of those,” said Steve, taking all but one of the bags.

“Regular knight in shining armor,” said Sam.  Then, slightly quieter, “You told him I was coming, right?  This isn’t going to end with me getting kicked through the window or anything?”

“Of course I told him,” said Steve.  “He’s not great with surprises.”

“Imagine my shock,” said Sam, and followed Steve into the house.  Bucky was standing in the living room, keeping his back to a wall, watching Sam with a blank sort of look.  It made Steve worry.  Sam looked like he was on edge, and he stopped just inside the door, and looked from Steve to Bucky to Steve again.

“Right,” said Steve, setting the bags down.  “Buck, I don’t know if you remember –”

“Hey,” said Sam, cleanly cutting Steve off without missing a beat.  “We haven’t met yet.  I’m Sam.”

“We’ve met,” said Bucky.

“Not really,” said Sam.

“I tore your wings off and kicked you off a plane,” Bucky said.  He moved further into the room, putting himself directly between Sam and the kitchen – between Sam and Steve.  Like he was getting ready to shield Steve with himself.  Steve’s chest ached.  “And I threatened you, in France.”

“Never said you didn’t. But if we’re keeping a tally, let it show that I kicked you in the head once and shot at you a couple of times, and chased you all over Europe so,” said Sam, casual, like he was talking about what he bought at the Farmer’s Market.   “All of that, and still we haven’t officially been introduced.  I’m Sam.”

There was a long and tense silence.  Steve was about two seconds from marching in and planting himself between the two of them when Bucky crossed his arms and said, “Bucky.”

“Nice to meet you,” Sam said, readjusting his grip on the remaining bag.  “Is it alright if I go in the kitchen?  Otherwise I can give this to you and I’ll just chill out here.”

He waited until Bucky stepped out of the way to let him through.

The rest of the night went better than Steve thought it would – Bucky didn’t talk again, after he said his name.  But he didn’t close himself away, either.  He nodded and shrugged, and Steve counted it as a victory.

“There is a voice in my head that sounds like my mother shrieking at me to feed that boy,” said Sam, when he went to leave.  “Besides, you two should probably get out of the house, eventually.  So bring him over to mine.  Friday work?”

“I’ll talk to Bucky,” said Steve.

“I already did,” said Sam.  “He’s cool with it.”

“When’d you talk to Bucky?” Steve asked.

“You were in the bathroom,” said Sam.

“Oh,” said Steve.  He didn’t know why that threw him so much.  “Okay.  Friday, then.”

“Great,” said Sam.  He shoved his hands in his pockets and started down the walk towards his car.  Steve turned to go back in.  “Hey, Steve.”

Steve faced the street again.  “Yeah?”

Sam shrugged, and smiled.  “You’re doing good,” he said.

Steve sighed and pushed a hand through his hair.  “If you say so,” he said.

And so on Friday, they went.  Fairly early on, Sam chased Steve out onto the patio to watch the grill, saying, “If you burn even one of those steaks, Rogers, your ass is the next thing to go on the fire.”

“Can I ask you a question?” Sam asked – Steve had left the backdoor cracked so he could hear what was happening inside.  “You don’t have to answer.  But it’s about your arm.  The metal one.”

Bucky must have nodded, because Sam asked.

“How do you feel about it?”

“It’s an arm,” Bucky said.  His voice sounded wooden and dull, the way it did when he started to pull away from the present, and it took everything Steve had not to go charging back in.

“Maybe,” said Sam.  “But I’m curious.  If you don’t want to talk about it, you can tell me that, too.”

“I don’t want to,” Bucky said.  His voice was a little sharper this time.  A little more in the moment.  A little more of a challenge, like he was daring Sam to press the matter.

“Okay,” Sam said.  “When you’re done with that, I would appreciate if you would bring this pan out to Steve and make sure he isn’t incinerating my steak.”

It was quiet.  Steve chanced a peek in through the glass door.  Sam was at the counter, his back fully turned to Bucky, grating cheese.  Bucky was staring openly at Sam, brows furrowed, like Sam was a particularly perplexing puzzle that he couldn’t quite put together.

It became something of a trend – Sam would ask Bucky if he could ask a question.  Sometimes Bucky said yes, sometimes no.  Sam always backed off immediately when it was the latter.  But, slowly, Bucky started talking more and more whenever Sam was there.

The back up plans came up over one such ‘can I ask you a question’ conversations..  “Do you ever get nervous?” Sam asked.  “That someone will come after you.”

Bucky didn’t answer, only nodded.

“Good,” said Sam.  “It makes me nervous, too.  And Steve too, I’ll bet.”

And so they started planning exit strategies for a worst case scenario.  “Plan for the worst,” said Sam, “Hope for the best.”

(“So, first,” said Sam.  “Code word.  If we’re ever separated so we can prove it’s us.”

“We used to use animals, back in the war,” said Steve.

“Works for me,” said Sam, and Bucky had just shrugged.)

“I know what you’re doing,” said Bucky, a few days later, as Sam and Steve wrestled the bass fiddle case into the just this side of too small gym locker.

(“So you can hide the shield,” Sam had said, surrounded by everything from this case to a large cake box. 

“I think you’re enjoying this way too much,” Steve had said.  Sam had only smiled wide in response.)

“Oh?” Sam asked, abandoning Steve to his task.  “And what’s that?”

“You’re making me go out of the house,” said Bucky.  “To put these together.”

“Yep,” said Sam.  “And the best part is that it’s working.”

Bucky huffed and crossed his arms, leaning against the lockers and looking down at his shoes.  Sam laughed, and Steve managed to slam the locker closed.  “Whatever,” said Bucky.

Sam added, quieter, “Gets Steve out of the house, too.”

Bucky had nothing to say to that.

“I’m going to go pay,” said Steve.  “I’ll meet you guys by the car.”

When he did get out there, Bucky and Sam appeared to be pretty deep in a conversation.  They stopped as soon as he walked up to them.

“Wow,” said Steve.  “That’s not going to make me paranoid at all.”

“Oh, you’re fine,” said Sam.  When Steve unlocked the car, he pulled out his phone.  “Right.  Where next?”

The rest of the day, Bucky stayed relatively quiet.  It was a different sort of quiet than his usual, though.  There was a sort of thoughtfulness around him.  Later, Steve sat down next to him on the couch, leaving a careful space between them, just in case.  “Alright,” Steve said.  “Let’s hear it.”

“I think we should go to one of Sam’s meetings,” Bucky said.  “The ones with the soldiers.”

“Really?” Steve asked.  Bucky shrugged with one shoulder and wouldn’t meet Steve’s eyes.  Steve, baffled and thrown off balance, asked, “How do you know about Sam’s meetings?”

“He told me about them,” said Bucky.  He cleared his throat and rubbed at the end of his nose.  “And I think we should go.”

“Yeah.  Yeah, okay,” said Steve.  He was trying to think of any other instance where Bucky had, unprompted, asked for something directly and coming up blank.  “Whatever you want.”

“Okay,” said Bucky, stood, and disappeared into his room.

The first meeting, they sat in the back.  Bucky kept his hat pulled low over his face and his hands shoved deep in his pockets, kept his gaze locked on the floor.  Steve could feel the tension radiating out of him, Bucky’s muscles tight and quivering like a taut bow string.  He didn’t think Bucky heard a single word that was said.

“Can we leave?” Bucky asked, the second that it was over.

“Yeah,” said Steve.  Sam, who had barely blinked when they showed up, watched them closely now.  Bucky shot to his feet and all but ran out the door.  Sam jerked his head, and Steve gave him a half smile as he followed Bucky out.  By the time he got out the door, Bucky was already in the car, bent at the waist and his head tucked between his knees.

Steve slid into the driver’s seat.  “Hey,” he said.  “You okay?”

“No,” said Bucky.  His hands were on the back of his neck, fingers netted together, like he was fighting himself to stay still.  “Yes.  Will be.”

“Can I do anything?” Steve asked.

“Sound.  Music.  Something,” Bucky said, his voice muffled.  “I want to go home.”

“Okay,” said Steve.  He put the keys in the ignition and skipped through radio stations until he found one that was playing classical music, and then pulled out of the parking lot.  They pulled into the driveway, and Steve killed the engine but didn’t get out so that the radio kept playing.  His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he didn’t have to look at it to know it was a text from Sam.  He didn’t read it yet.  Instead, he kept all his attention where it usually went – on Bucky.  “We’re back,” said Steve.

Slowly, Bucky unfolded.  He propped himself on his elbows first, one palm pressed to his forehead and the other, the metal one, balled into a fist in his lap.  He took a shallow breath, then another, then a third.  “That was good,” Bucky said through gritted teeth.

“What?” asked Steve.

“The meeting,” said Bucky.

“I,” Steve started to say but gave up.  “Really?”

Bucky sat straight.  “We should go again next week,” he said, and got out of the car.

“Uh,” said Steve, following him.  “I mean, if that’s what you want to do.  I just – I’m kind of confused here.”

“Why?” Bucky asked.  The minute Steve unlocked the door, Bucky squeezed past and in.  He went to the sink and drank water straight from the faucet, pausing for a minute with his head hanging into the sink, and then turned to look at Steve again.

“Because of what just happened,” said Steve.  “And then the first thing you want is to go back?”

“Yeah,” said Bucky.  He rubbed the back of his neck and moved towards his room, always keeping his back to the wall.  “How about that?”

He slammed the door shut behind him.  Steve, alone in the living room, frowned at the door like maybe it could give him the answers he was looking for.

And they did go the next week.  Bucky even managed to stay after long enough for Sam to come over and tell them how happy he was to see them there again.  He didn’t close in on himself, either.  He still rushed to the car and spent most of the drive staring at his knees and not talking.  But, again, he said that he wanted to go again the next week.  Again, Steve agreed.

During the third one, Steve found his attention straying from Bucky and actually paying attention to what was being said.  He listened, let the words run through his mind, let the stories and problems the veterans were bringing up actually process.  And afterward, Bucky didn’t shoot to his feet.  He didn’t say anything, so finally Steve asked, “Ready to go home?”

“No,” said Bucky.

“Oh,” said Steve.  “Okay.”

“Can we, like,” said Bucky, and bit his bottom lip.  “Can we go for a walk around or something?”

“Sure,” said Steve.  “Course we can.”

When they left, Bucky was the one to go up to Sam and initiate the goodbye.  Steve was glad Bucky didn’t seem overly talkative, because he feared his voice would be rough and would crack if he tried to use it.  They wandered around the VA, neither saying anything.  The early autumn air was cool, and the leaves had just started to fall from the trees, and Steve – Steve felt like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Eventually, they came to rest on a park bench across the street.

“It’s like that,” said Bucky, suddenly.

“What?” Steve asked.

“That,” said Bucky, gesturing towards where a bunch of kids were playing.  The VA walls had an indent, creating a U-shape.  The way the wind blew, it whipped up the leaves that were trapped there into a miniature tornado.  The kids, laughing and shrieking, were running in circles, trying to snatch the leaves out of the air.  Steve smiled at their antics, but Bucky remained serious.  “It feels like that,” he repeated.

“I’m going to need a little more detail, Buck,” said Steve.

“Trying to remember,” said Bucky.  “Everything’s there, it’s just – it’s scattered.  Everything’s scattered, and if I could catch something then –” he broke off, reaching out into the air before dropping his hand to his lap again.  They watched two of the children collide and fell to the ground in a tangled pile of limbs.  Bucky let out a heavy breath.  “But I can’t.”

Steve tried to find something he could say that would make it better.  He couldn’t, and so he looked down at his shoes.  There was a crumpled yellow leaf just next to his left foot.  He bent down and picked it up.  “Your mother’s favorite color was yellow,” said Steve.  “She used to grow daffodils in a box under the kitchen window.”  He held out the leaf.  “I don’t have your memories, Bucky.  But maybe I can help catch a few of them, anyway.”

Bucky stared at him, wide eyed, for a full minute before he looked away, ducking his head so that between his hair and hat, Steve couldn’t see his face.  But he reached over and snatched the leaf from Steve’s fingers.  When he spoke, his voice was a little rougher than normal.  “You’re not this much of a sap with Sam,” he said.

“What can I say?” said Steve, smiling.  “You bring out the sappiest in me.”

“God help us all,” Bucky muttered.  He glanced sideways at Steve again.  Then he said, “You wanted to know why I didn’t let you help me.  Before.  When you were chasing me.”

“You don’t have to –”

“This is why.  It’d have been easier, to stay with you.  Everything they put in my head said I needed a handler, and you were right there, but I.  I didn’t want you to be that,” he said.  “That’s why I didn’t let you catch me, either.  People – people kept making me into someone, something.  I didn’t want you to do that, too.”

“No,” Steve said.  “Bucky, I would have never.”

“Yeah, you would’ve,” Bucky said, and there was that twitch like he was trying to smile but couldn’t quite get the knack of it yet.  “You’d’ve meant well, but you would’ve.”

Steve wanted to argue but he couldn’t.  “Yeah,” he said, and found that he couldn’t actually look at Bucky when he said it.  “Aren’t you worried I’m going to do that now?”

“No,” said Bucky.  “I’m not.”

“How come?” Steve asked.

Bucky didn’t answer – he seemed to have used up his words for the day – but he did lean over to bump Steve lightly in the shoulder with his own.  Steve thought he knew, anyway.  He’d been expecting to have to build Bucky back from the bottom up.  This Bucky though, the one who showed up at Steve’s front door, had done so much of the groundwork himself.  He’d started the foundation and done a damn good job on his own of establishing the framework.

Time went on - it wasn’t until the fourth meeting that Steve really came to a conclusion.  “The meetings aren’t doing anything for you,” said Steve.  “Are they?”

“They are,” said Bucky.  He didn’t look up from where he was suddenly very, very invested in picking at the upholstery of Steve’s couch.

“Bucky,” said Steve.

Bucky sighed.  “They help you,” he said.

“What?”

“They help you,” he said.  He crossed his arms and glared in Steve’s general direction, still not making eye contact.  “The meetings.  They’re good for you.  You don’t go anywhere unless I go too.  It’s not healthy.”

There was a part of him that wanted to ask how Bucky was qualified to be judging his mental health, but he swallowed it back.  “So you’ve been going places you don’t like,” he said.  “Because you think it’s good for me.”

“Stop,” Bucky said.  “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” asked Steve.

“ _That_.  That thing you’re doing right now.  Stop it,” said Bucky, gesturing in the air like an explanation with his right hand.  “They’re helping you.  The meetings.  So we go.  Why is that a problem?”

“Because they aren’t helping you,” said Steve.  “I think you might actually hate going.”

“Not everything has to be about me.  God,” Bucky said, and then stopped, frowning, like he was replaying the words in his head.  He looked at Steve.  “This is stupid.  I don’t want to talk about it anymore.  And I told Sam this would happen.”

“Told Sam what would happen?”

“This,” said Bucky.  “You being – being – being so _you_ about it.”

Steve let that roll around in his head for a few seconds.  “I see how it is,” he said.  “So do you and Sam talk about me a lot?”

“Well, yeah,” said Bucky, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.  “What else do we have to talk about?”

Someone knocked at the door.  Neither of them moved.

“That’s Sam,” said Bucky.  “You should let him in.  Unless you think that’s not going to do anything for me.  Because why even bother otherwise?”

Steve didn’t think that merited a response, so he didn’t give one.  He marched over the door and wrenched it open and said, “I heard you and Bucky have been talking about me.”

“Uh,” said Sam.

“Told you,” Bucky called out, sinking lower on the couch, still with his arms crossed.

“Look,” said Sam.  “Bucky was the one who brought it up, and it’s not like he was wrong.”

“Sure, throw me under the bus,” Bucky muttered.  If Steve wasn’t so annoyed, he’d have been thrilled to death at the way Bucky was sassing him right now.  As it was, however.

“Besides,” Sam said, apparently ignoring Bucky’s newfound attitude.  “You’ve been doing better.  You need to be around people who aren’t just me and him, okay?”

“Fine,” said Steve.  “Whatever.  But Bucky hates the meetings.”

“So Bucky doesn’t have to come, though I think they’re good for him, too,” said Sam.  “Just you can go.  That’s a possibility.  He can stay here, or go for a walk, or wait outside.  You two are not, contrary to what you seem to believe, actually connected to each other.”

“I know that,” said Steve.  “But Bucky –”

“Not everything’s about Bucky you know,” said Sam, and then leaned in the door so he could see Bucky, and added, “No offense.”

Bucky waved a hand in the air.  “I said the same thing.”

“There?  See?” said Sam.  “He said the same thing.  We just worry about you, man.  It’s allowed.”

“I’m fine,” said Steve.  Bucky snorted.  Steve pointed at him.  “I don’t want to hear it from you,” he said.

“Too bad,” said Bucky.  He wasn’t smiling, but his eyes were bright, like he was maybe close.  It was enough to let whatever was left of Steve’s indignation to slowly drain away, no matter how hard he tried to hold onto it.

“So,” said Sam.  “We cool or are you going to make me stand on your front steps all night?”

Steve stepped out of the way and waved him in.  “Don’t think that I’m going to let this go,” said Steve.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Sam.

Later, if Sam were to turn to him and ask what made him happy, Steve thought that maybe he was onto an answer even if he couldn’t quite put it into words.  It was this, sitting around his counter making food for dinner.  It was Bucky on his right and Sam on his left, Sam quietly goading Bucky into a teasing argument that, for the second time that evening, almost had a smile on Bucky’s face.  It was here, right now, when finally, _finally_ , for the first time, maybe since he was woken from the ice, Steve felt as if he were content, or at least something close enough to it.

He should have known it couldn’t last.

\--

“Morning,” Steve said, turning the coffee pot on.  He’d taken a rare morning to sleep in, and as he glanced at the clock, realized that it was somehow almost noon.  “Or maybe afternoon, I guess.  Wow, I don’t remember the last time I slept this long.”

Bucky didn’t respond.  Steve glanced over at him.  There was a gun in his hand that Steve didn’t remember seeing before.  Bucky had the blinds drawn and was peering out a slit.  Steve, still stuck in an early morning fog, realized that all the blinds were closed.  He thought, maybe, even the blinds in his own bedroom had been drawn, though he rarely bothered to do it himself. 

Steve frowned, and asked, “Hey, Buck.  What’s going on?”

“There was someone outside,” Bucky said.  “He was watching the house.”

“What?” Steve asked.

“Had a scarf pulled up over his face,” Bucky said, holding a hand up to demonstrate before dropping it to his side again.  “Tall.  Dark hair.  Wearing a black coat.  No visible weapons.”

“Bucky –”

“He was there, Steve,” said Bucky. “He’s gone by twice already this morning, another time yesterday.”

“He probably lives around here,” said Steve.

“He’s watching the house,” said Bucky.

Steve sighed.  “So,” he said.  “I take it that we’re not going to Sam’s meeting today.”

“It’s not safe,” said Bucky.  He looked at Steve.  “You should tell Sam to stay inside, too.  They could be after him as well.”

“Maybe I should have Sam come over,” said Steve.

Bucky clenched his jaw, and pressed his mouth into a thin line.  “I’m not crazy,” he said.  “He’s out there.”

“I’m not calling you crazy,” said Steve.  “I’m just – it’d be safer, right?  If Sam were here with us.”

Bucky looked out the window again.  “With you, maybe,” he said, and Steve didn’t like the sound of that at all.  But Bucky had apparently reached the end of the conversation.

Steve sighed, leaning against the counter and bracing his weight on his hands.  He listened to the hiss and gurgle of the brewing coffee, and watched as it started to trickle down and fill the glass pot.  Bucky didn’t move from his perch, and didn’t acknowledge Steve again for hours, not when Steve offered food or coffee.

Steve sighed, finally, after having cleared the dishes and invited Sam over.  “After work, man,” Sam had said.  “I’ve got to get paid before anything else.  At least one of us has to be a contributing member of society.  Just.  Don’t let him shoot anybody.”

Now, Steve looked at Bucky.  “See anything?” he asked.  He was ignored.  Steve pushed a hand through his hair.  “I’m going to go take a shower.”

If it was a longer than usual shower, no one was going to call him on it.  Steve lingered under the water, took his time getting dressed, anything to keep from going back into the living room again, back into the cloud Bucky had pulled down in there.  He told himself this was just a phase, just like when Bucky wouldn’t wear anything with long sleeves for a week.  It would pass.  It would.  It was just that Bucky had been doing so well.

He shouldn’t have procrastinated so long, though.  By the time he walked back into the living room, Bucky had abandoned the window.  He was standing next to the couch, pushing a shirt into one of Steve’s duffel bags.

“Bucky?” Steve asked.  He didn’t understand.  “What’s going on?”

“I shouldn’t have come here,” Bucky said.  He jerked the zipper on the duffel bag shut roughly and slung the bag’s strap over a shoulder.  “This was a mistake.”

By the time Steve could even start to process it, could let the words wash over him like a tide of frigid water, Bucky was by the door and pulling his boots on.  “Wait,” said Steve.  “Wait, Bucky – what do you mean?”

“He came by again,” said Bucky.  “They must have followed me here.”

“Who?” Steve asked.  “Hydra?”

“Yes.”

“Bucky,” said Steve, at a loss.  “You’ve been here for nearly two months.”

“Yes,” said Bucky.  “I covered my tracks.  I thought it was enough.  I was wrong.”

“So you’re leaving?” Steve asked.  The words stuck like barbed wire in his throat, but he pushed them out anyway.

“They followed me here,” Bucky repeated.  “They’ll follow me away again.”

“So, what?” Steve asked.  He planted his hands on hips.  “You’re just going to run away, just disappear again, all alone, and spend the rest of your life running away?”

“I’m not running away,” Bucky said.  “I’m going to keep them away from you.”

“It’s not going to work,” said Steve.  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed or remembered or anything, but I’m not Hydra’s favorite person in the world.”  Not that Hydra’s even here, Steve thought.

Bucky pressed his lips into a flat line.  “I shouldn’t have come here,” he said again.

That’s when Steve realized he’d already lost the fight.  He’d lost it before he’d even started.  So, he dropped his arms.  “Fine,” said Steve.  “Fine.  Where are we going?”

That, finally, made Bucky stop.  “What?” he asked.

“I’m not letting you vanish again, Buck.  I don’t know if I’d survive that,” said Steve.  “So if you’re going, I’m going too.  So.  Where are we going?”

“No,” said Bucky.  “No, you can’t just –”

Someone knocked on the door.  Bucky turned, pushing Steve behind him and pulling a knife out from where it had been tucked into his belt, hidden beneath his shirt.  “Bucky, come on,” said Steve, moving around him.  “It’s fine.  Sam was coming over, remember?”

“Yes,” said Bucky, shortly. He put the knife away, but didn’t relax.  He pushed Steve back again and marched to the door.

“Hey, Bucky,” Sam said.  “Not used to you being the one to – hey!”

Bucky grabbed him by the front of his shirt and jerked him into the house, slamming the door shut behind him.  Immediately he started to look out the peep hole while Sam found his balance and gave Steve a questioning, confused look.

“It’s not a great day,” said Steve.  “Bucky thinks the house is being watched.”

“Okay,” said Sam.  He looked down to where the duffel bag was still sitting.  “Oh,” he said.  “We going somewhere?”

“You want to come too?” Steve asked.

“Well, yeah,” said Sam.

“Neither of you are coming,” Bucky said.  He pushed past them in order to peer through the blinds again.

“He thinks someone tracked him here,” said Steve.  “He’s trying to –”

“Stop talking about me like I’m not here,” Bucky snapped.

“Stop trying to leave, then,” Steve said.

“Look,” said Sam, hands raised slightly.  “Why don’t you come and crash at mine tonight and we can talk about this tomorrow?  You’ve been cooped up here for too long, boys.  Time for a change of scenery.”

“It’s not safe,” said Bucky.

“So you’ll be better off at my place,” said Sam.  “If you are being watched here, the next logical step is to go to a new location.  I’m offering mine.  Besides, there’s safety in numbers.  We can watch each other’s backs.  Okay?”

“Yeah,” said Steve, all too happy to jump to a solution outside of Bucky trying to slip away again.  “Yeah, that sounds good to me.  Bucky?”

He didn’t look away from the window.  “Fine,” he finally said.

The ride over to Sam’s was tense, silence.  Anytime either of them talked to Bucky, he only answered, “It’s not safe,” or “I never should have come here.”  Steve was half expecting him to jump straight out the window and disappear into the night.

“Where’s your shield?” Bucky asked when they walked into Sam’s house.

“I left it at home,” said Steve.  Bucky clenched his jaw.  Steve pinched the bridge of his nose, and then said, “I guess I’m going to get it.”

“It’s not safe,” Bucky said, for what felt like the millionth time that hour.  Steve pushed down the swell of annoyance that rose in his chest – it was not Bucky’s fault, he told himself.  It’s not his fault.

“Fifteen minutes,” said Steve.  “I’ll be right back.  Twenty, at the most.  It’ll be fine, then the shield will be here, and we can all rest easy.  I’ll be able to move quicker if it’s just me.  Okay?”

“Besides, I could use you here,” said Sam.  “I’m not as good as you two at fighting off bad guys.”

“Lie,” said Bucky, still staring solidly at Steve.

“Come on,” said Steve.  “It’ll be okay.  There and back.”

“You can take my car,” said Sam, and tossed him the keys.

“I’ll be right back,” said Steve.  He had to look away – there was something close to fear on Bucky’s face.  “Seriously.  You can come get me if I’m longer than twenty minutes.  Okay?”

“Fifteen,” said Bucky.

“Fifteen minutes,” said Steve.  “I’ll be back before you know it.”

He walked out the door.

When he got back to his house, the sun had long since set, and he shivered in the cold air and pulled his jacket a little tighter, walking up to his door.  He paused, and glanced over his shoulder, scanning the street.  There was no one, nothing, nothing at all, except for the prickling at the back of his neck that screamed he was being watched.  He shook himself.  Bucky had gotten to him more than Steve had thought.  “Come on, Rogers,” he muttered, unlocking the door.  “Pull it together.”

He shut the door behind him when he walked in, and if he locked it too, though he was only going to be there for a moment – well.  There was no one around to know.

He walked back to his bedroom, where the shield was propped up against the wall.  He hooked it on an arm, and went into the kitchen to grab a glass of water before heading back to Sam’s.

A floorboard creaked behind him. 

Steve froze, and an irrational voice in the back of his mind that sounded an awful lot like Bucky used to before the war whispered that he should have listened to the Bucky of today.  He turned and found himself staring at a man wearing full SWAT gear, gun pointed directly at Steve.  Steve curled in on himself, raising his shield, just as the man fired.  He didn’t wait, the moment the bullet ricocheted off of the shield he charged forward.

He slammed the shield into the gunman, sending him flying back into a wall.  He crumpled to the floor, leaving a sizeable dent in the plaster behind him and didn’t get up.  The only sound in the house was Steve’s own heavy breathing.  That is, it was the only sound until his door was, sudden and without ceremony, kicked in and three more men – dressed exactly like the first – came charging in, guns drawn.

Steve hurled the shield, smashing the leading charger in the chest and rushing forward for the second.  He jerked the gun from his hands and smashed him in the face with the butt of it.  A bullet, fired from the gun of the third man, grazed Steve’s arm.  Steve growled, scooped up his shield, and rammed into the third man with all of his weight.  He flew across the room to land next to the still form of the first attacker.

Steve looked up and through his front window.  There were at least four – maybe more, he thought, maybe more he couldn’t see – and they all had their weapons trained on the front of the house.  Steve hit the floor just as they started to open fire.

He crawled on his stomach into the kitchen as the bullets ripped through his front wall, shattering glass and completely demolishing Steve’s ever dwindling hope of getting his security deposit back.  Sitting in the kitchen behind the counter, shield over his head just in case, legs pulled to his knees as he waited for the deluge of lead to subside, Steve had only one clear thought in his head: he should’ve have listened to Bucky.

The gunfire stopped as abruptly as it began.  Steve’s ears rang in the sudden silence.  Slow and careful, he lowered his shield.  Then, a pop.  A deceptively delicate tinkling sound as something managed to break through what had to be the last of the glass still managing to hold on in the window.  A thud as something hit the carpet.  Steve peered over the top of the counter.

He launched himself into the air and up onto the counter, one foot landing solidly in his sink, and crashed through the kitchen window into his backyard as the grenade exploded.  He landed in the grass, blinking, dazed, smelling smoke, ears pounding from the force of the blast.  He blinked and focused in on a  pair of boots – on the person quickly walking towards him.  Steve pushed himself up to his knees.  The man was in Kevlar and black, just like all the others, but he had the lower half of his face covered with a mask not unlike what the Winter Soldier had worn, had a hood pulled over his head.  Had a gun aimed at Steve’s face.

Steve hurled the shield and was on his feet and running before it collided with the man’s knees.  He grabbed it as he went past, and ran.

They followed.

He lost them by skidding down an alley and wedging himself behind a dumpster.  They shot past the entrance to the alley, and Steve immediately got up and backtracked, moving through the streets.  He jerked his jacket off and covered his shield with it, wincing as he noticed the scratches that ran up and down his arms from going out the window.

Walk, he thought.  Just walk.  Think.  That last man, Steve thought.  The one with his face covered.  He looked just like Bucky had described, just like – Bucky –

Bucky.

Sam.

No.

_No._

Steve spun on his heel and started running – he had barely made it two blocks when his phone buzzed in his pocket. Letting his shield clatter to the ground as he skidded to a stop, Steve fumbled with his phone and opened the text and tried to ignore how badly his hands were shaking.

 **Sam Wilson** : _hydra her e ive got bucky get urslf out_

The phone buzzed again in his hand, and a second one came in.

 **Sam Wilson:** _badger sry forgot_

Steve read it, read it again, read it a third time. 

 _Stay safe_ , he texted back.

Then he dropped the phone onto the ground, crushed it under his heel, and walked away down the road.  He forced himself to breathe.  They’d planned for this.  They had exit strategies.  Sam and Bucky would be okay.  Remember the plan.  Remember the plan.  There was no way to know which route Sam and Bucky would take.  Remember the plan.  They’d be alright.  Remember the plan.  It was no use looking for them now, it would only waste times and maybe make things worse.

He made himself move, one foot in front of the other.  Sam had Bucky.  It would be fine.

Remember the plan.

\--

The Howling Commandoughs was a wildly popular bakery.  The first time Steve heard of it, it was because the local news station was doing a story about how business – always steady – had been booming ever since the battle for New York and Captain America’s explosive reentry to the crime fighting scene.  When it cut to the owner, Steve had to sit down – Caroline Jones was in her late fifties, had her hair pulled back into a severe bun, but when she smiled and around her eyes, she was every inch an echo of Gabe.

The first time he managed to work up the nerve and actually go to the place, he’d kept his hat pulled low over his eyes.  The sign alone was enough to make him sit down on a park bench and laugh helplessly for a moment.  They were all there, all of the Commandos, all done up to look like different baked goods.  When he finally walked in, he kept to a back corner to go over a paper menu of the items available.  Everything had names that made Steve want to break out into laughing or crying, he wasn’t sure which – everywhere he turned, a pun on a name of someone he knew glared up at him, labeling different baked goods.

It took another few visits before finally, he waited until it emptied out a bit, and walked up to the counter.  Caroline Jones had just looked at him, smiled, and said, “We’ve been wondering how long it would take you to say hello.”  For an hour, Steve sat in the bakery while she fed him, listening to her talk about how all the Commandos stayed in contact with each other over the years, how they’d formed a sort of sprawling, international family, even had picnics and reunions from time to time, and how Caroline would add him to the newsletter list if he’d just leave his address.

So when Bucky started getting twitchy and Sam mentioned maybe coming up with a few exit plans, just in case – Steve knew where to start laying the groundwork for at least one of them.

The bakery was practically deserted by the time Steve walked up to it, limping only a little now.  There were two cars in the parking lot, and through the windows Steve could see a skinny young man wiping down the counter.  He hefted the shield so it was more securely under his arm, and walked in.  The little bell above the door tinkled, announcing his presence.

“We’re closed,” said the young man, not glancing away from his cleaning.

“I have an order to pick up,” said Steve.

“We’re closed,” the worker repeated.  He still didn’t look up.  “You’ll have to come back in the morning.”

“Look,” said Steve.  “Either go get Caroline Jones and tell her Steve is here to pick up order 42 or call her and tell her.  Just do it fast.  I don’t have much time.”

He looked up now, clearly about to start arguing back.  Instead, he took in the sight of Steve, battered and dirty, the shield peeking out ever so slightly from beneath the jacket he wrapped it in, and froze.  “Uh.  You’re – you’re –”

“Yes,” said Steve.   “I am.  And I really need to pick up my order.”

“Caroline!” the kid yelled, turning and all but fleeing the store to the back kitchen.  Steve heard him bang into something, swear, and then yell again, “Caroline!”

A minute later, she emerged.  “Well,” she said, taking one look at Steve.  “Someone’s having a rough night.”

“I think I scared your employee,” said Steve.

“Dugans,” she said, shaking her head.  “Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.”

“He’s a Dugan?” Steve asked.  He craned his neck to try and see the kid again.  “Really?”

“Yes.  Timothy the Third,” she said and shook her head.  “He’s sick of his parents and they needed a break from him, so I gave him a job for the summer.  But I’m guessing you’re not here to catch up on the gossip.  I thought I heard something about an order – you here to pick yours up?”

 “I am,” he said.  “And not to be rude, but I’m kind of in a rush.”

“I got you,” she said.  “Hold tight one minute.  I’ll be right back with your things.”

While he waited, Steve fidgeted and tugged the jacket more securely over his shield.  He did not think about where Bucky and Sam were.  They would meet him at the train station, he thought. 

She came back with a medium sized manila envelope.  “Number forty-two,” she said.   Steve took the envelope with a nod and turned to leave.  “Wait!” she said.  He paused and watched as she put three large, chocolate muffins in a white paper bag.  “Here,” she said.

“I don’t have any money with me,” he said.

“Wouldn’t be any good here, anyway,” she said.  “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times.”

“I can’t –”

“Say thank you and move along,” she said.  “We look after our own.  You have a good night, Cap.  Stay safe out there.”

Steve smiled, and took the bag.  “Thanks,” he said, and headed for the door again.  He paused.  “Maybe lock up after I leave, Caroline.  Don’t know who might be out there.”

“You got it,” she said.  He nodded, and walked out, the little bell tinkling again.

He walked away and past three bus stops before waiting.  When the bus pulled up, he got on, showed the driver his bus pass, and went to sit in the back.  He kept his shield covered by the coat and wedged between his legs.  It was empty except for him.  He tore open the envelope, and dumped the contents out into his hand – a track phone and a bus key.  Steve turned on the phone, hoping that there would already be a text from Sam and Bucky waiting for him – they stashed at least 8 of these all over the city, just in case.

There was no text.  So Steve, sending out the message to all of the numbers, typed out the text.

_We still on for tonight?  Cat, by the way._

He hit send, and then looked out the window, the phone clutched tight in a slightly sweating palm.  They were alright, he thought.  They had to be.

He got off the bus and walked the few remaining blocks to the train station, hiking his shield up further beneath his arm.  He looked over his shoulder as he walked – as far as he could tell, no one was following.  When he walked in, Steve glanced around again, and then walked over to the rows of lockers and stopped in front of number 42.  He got the key out of his pocket, and, balancing the shield between his feet, unlocked it.

Inside were a tuba case and a backpack.  Feeling like someone was staring at the back of his head, Steve turned again, scanning the train station.  As far as he could tell, there was no one watching.  Steve swallowed heavily, maneuvered his shield inside of the instrument case, and slung the backpack over his shoulder.  If he were to open it, he knew he would find several bottles of water, a handful of granola bars, a wallet with two hundred dollars cash and a debit card, a gun, and an atlas.

He walked, slow and deliberate as he could manage, over to buy a ticket.  Then, that in hand, he went to sit on a bench and wait for the train to New York to arrive.  As he sat, he stared at his shoe and gripped the phone.  When it actually buzzed, he almost jumped straight out of his skin.  He almost dropped it, fumbling to get the text open as quick as he could.

 **3016608954** _: raccoon. could be late – a friend is having a rough night and I’m giving him a ride. meet at the usual place?  you owe me so many drinks. so many._

Steve let out a gust of air, and it was like the adrenaline that had been keeping him going left with it.  He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and pressed the phone against his forehead, and let out another large, shaky breath.  Bucky was with Sam, even if they weren’t able to communicate too much.  But they were on their way to New York – they were – Steve didn’t know if they were okay, but they were alive. 

He laughed despite himself.   The woman sitting next to him slid away a little bit further, but Steve didn’t care.  He quickly tapped out another message – sounds like a plan – and hit send.  He looked at the number the text had come from and tried to remember which phone, which exit strategy, it belonged to.  His head was spinning with too much relief to figure it out though – he felt sick with it, giddy.

The train pulled up.  Steve took a deep, gulping breath.  Another.  He stood up, waiting until the doors opened, and climbed up and inside the car.  He walked two, maybe three cars down until he found one that was relatively empty save for a scattering of people, and settled himself in a set of 4 seats.  He kept the tuba case between his feet and dropped the bag of muffins and the backpack down next to him.  He folded his hands in his lap and looked down at them, pulling his hat a little further down his face.

Someone dropped into the seat across from him.  Steve bent his face further down and looked out the window. 

A minute later they kicked him in the shins. 

He looked up sharply, one hand reaching down so he could pull the shield out if he needed it.  Instead, he froze, letting his brain catch up with the person who was sitting across from him.

“Hey, Soldier,” said Natasha.  “Aren’t you going to even say hello?”

“Natasha,” he said, looking around to scan for any threats.  “What are you – how did you –”

“I got wind you were about to get some unexpected visitors.  Old acquaintances of our mutual friend,” she said.  She shrugged with one shoulder and shook her head.  “By the time I got to your place, it was pretty clear you already knew that.  Where’s –”

Steve held out his phone, the text from Sam still open.  He had been reading it, again and again, like maybe this time the words would tell him something different.  “I don’t,” he said, and stopped.  “I don’t know if they’re –”

“They’re okay,” said Natasha, handing the phone back.  She pulled out her own and started typing something before putting it away again.  She looked up at Steve.  “If they needed us, Sam would say so.  He’s reliable like that.”

“Yeah,” said Steve.  He shook himself, glanced out the window, and then looked back at Natasha.  “I only –”

“I know,” she said.  “What about you?  You hurt at all?”

“Bumps and bruises,” said Steve.  “I’ll be fine.”

Natasha ran her eyes over him, like she was convinced that he was lying.  Instead, her gaze landed elsewhere.  “That’s a nice touch, by the way,” she said, kicking the instrument case before propping her feet up on the seat next to Steve.  “What’s supposed to go in there?”

“A tuba, I think,” said Steve.  “It was Sam’s idea.”

“Smart man,” she said.  Then her eyes narrowed in on the white paper bag.  “What’s that?”

“What?  Oh, those,” said Steve.  “Muffins.”

“You packed a snack?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Not exactly,” said Steve.  He glanced over at the scattering of other people throughout the train car.  “I’ll tell you about it, sometime.  Want one?”

She grabbed the bag without hesitating a single second, pulling out one of the muffins.  She took a large bite and groaned.  “Oh my God,” she said.  “Where did you get these?”

“A, uh,” said Steve, and rubbed the back of his neck.  “A bakery in DC.”

“Which one?” she asked.  “I mean, I’ll track it down eventually.  But you could save me a lot of legwork just by telling me.”

“It’s called the Howling Commandoughs,” he said.  “Dough like bread.  Clever, right?”

She paused, mid chew, and then with her mouth full, asked, “Are you jerking me around right now?”

“What you have there,” said Steve.  “That’s called the Magnificent Morita.  Three kinds of chocolate.  It’s not as good as the Fighting Falsworth – that’s my favorite of their muffins, banana nut– but it was late in the day so they were out of a lot of things.  Didn’t have a single Bucky Bun left.”

“I’m going to regret asking this,” she said.  “What’s a Bucky Bun?”

“Cinnamon roll thing,” said Steve.  “They’re fantastic.  Much better than the Capcakes, even though those are the better seller.”

Natasha stared at him for a long moment.  “Oh my God,” she finally said.  “Sometimes I don’t know what to do with you, I really don’t.  You’re so pathetic.”

“If I’m pathetic,” he said.  “Look me in the eye and tell me that isn’t one of the greatest things you’ve ever eaten.”

“I’m not even going to try,” she said.  They fell quiet, Steve zoning out and staring down at his feet, Natasha polishing off the rest of the muffin.  The train lurched forward and started to move down the tracks.  Steve couldn’t help the small flinch at the unexpected movement.  Natasha nudged his leg with her toe.  “Don’t be so nervous,” she said.  “It draws attention.”

“Sorry,” said Steve.  He slid down slightly in his seat, his arms crossed over his chest, and wondered where Bucky and Sam were by now.  “I just don’t really like trains.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we're still not at the tower. At least we're headed in the right direction?
> 
> Also, once again, I'm not sure when the next bit will be up, but hopefully in less time than this one took.
> 
> And again, if you wanna chat, come hit me up on tumblr at bonesbuckleup.


End file.
